VOA标准英语2012--USAID Prioritizes to Boost Impact in Africa

USAID Prioritizes to Boost Impact in Africa

Villagers near Senegal’s River Delta¹ plan a year-long rotation² of crops to supplement their diets and incomes. USAID provides technical guidance and has constructed wells for irrigation, helping³ to turn fertile soil into flourishing gardens. Ngara Diatta tends an onion patch that will later produce tomatoes, eggplants, and cabbage.

"Before, goats and cows would trample⁴ our garden and eat the vegetables," said the gardener. "It was upsetting to work so hard and have it all ruined. Now thanks to this project, we have fences to protect our crops and I can sleep peacefully. This project has changed our lives. We can sell these vegetables to help our families."

USAID also helped to construct an earthen dike⁵ and concrete retention⁶ basin to keep out saltwater and retain freshwater, allowing hundreds of hectares of land to be reclaimed⁷ for farming. 

"The groundwater used to be so deep that gardening was difficult. Thanks to the dike, we can find water easily. Now when the rice harvest is over, people plant vegetables. We can work year round," said community leader Abdoulaye Ndiaye.

The Senegal project is part of a global U.S. anti-hunger campaign called Feed the Future. 

“Food aid costs eight-to-10 times more than investing in helping people produce and sustain their own futures⁸ through agriculture," said USAID Administrator⁹ Rajiv Shah. "We are starting to see real results in our Feed the Future partnership¹⁰, with countries in that program experiencing a rate of agricultural productivity growth nearly eight times the global average.”

Foreign assistance accounts for one percent of U.S. government expenditures¹¹ - a share considered too high by some lawmakers at a time of massive U.S. indebtedness. 

“You are going to have to convince me why it is necessary to borrow more money from communist China in order to give money to some other country or some other group of people,” said Congressman¹² Dana Rorhabacher.

Other legislators say fighting hunger, poverty and disease abroad is in America’s national interest. 

“It is infinitely¹³ cheaper to address these problems with economic and technical assistance now than to wait until fragile states collapse¹⁴ or conflicts erupt in wide-scale violence and we have to resort to costly¹⁵ emergency aid or even military action,” Congressman Howard Berman.

In rural Senegal, USAID’s impact is plain to see.

"We hear of rice shortages in Dakar but here, we do not have that problem," said Abdoulaye Ndiaye, Toubacouta Council president. "We are eating rice that we grow. We prepare it with oil from peanuts we farmed, and serve it with onions, eggplant, and cabbage. We thank the Americans for their continued support." 

1 delta   

n.（流的）角洲

参考例句：

• He has been to the delta of the Nile.他曾去过尼罗河三角洲。
• The Nile divides at its mouth and forms a delta.尼罗河在河口分岔，形成了一个三角洲。

2 rotation   

n.旋转；循环，轮流

参考例句：

• Crop rotation helps prevent soil erosion.农作物轮作有助于防止水土流失。
• The workers in this workshop do day and night shifts in weekly rotation.这个车间的工人上白班和上夜班每周轮换一次。

3 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

4 trample   

vt.踩，践踏；无视，伤害，侵犯

参考例句：

• Don't trample on the grass. 勿踏草地。
• Don't trample on the flowers when you play in the garden. 在花园里玩耍时,不要踩坏花。

5 dike   

n.堤，沟；v.开沟排水

参考例句：

• They dug a dike along walls of the school.他们沿校墙挖沟。
• Fortunately,the flood did not break the dike.还好，这场大水没有把堤坝冲坏。

6 retention   

n.保留，保持，保持力，记忆力

参考例句：

• They advocate the retention of our nuclear power plants.他们主张保留我们的核电厂。
• His retention of energy at this hour is really surprising.人们惊叹他在这个时候还能保持如此旺盛的精力。

7 reclaimed   

adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救

参考例句：

• Many sufferers have been reclaimed from a dependence on alcohol. 许多嗜酒成癖的受害者已经被挽救过来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They reclaimed him from his evil ways. 他们把他从邪恶中挽救出来。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

8 futures   

n.期货，期货交易

参考例句：

• He continued his operations in cotton futures.他继续进行棉花期货交易。
• Cotton futures are selling at high prices.棉花期货交易的卖价是很高的。

9 administrator   

n.经营管理者，行政官员

参考例句：

• The role of administrator absorbed much of Ben's energy.行政职务耗掉本很多精力。
• He has proved himself capable as administrator.他表现出管理才能。

10 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

11 expenditures   

n.花费( expenditure的名词复数 )；使用；（尤指金钱的）支出额；（精力、时间、材料等的）耗费

参考例句：

• We have overspent.We'll have to let up our expenditures next month. 我们已经超支了，下个月一定得节约开支。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The pension includes an allowance of fifty pounds for traffic expenditures. 年金中包括50镑交通费补贴。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

13 infinitely   

adv.无限地，无穷地

参考例句：

• There is an infinitely bright future ahead of us.我们有无限光明的前途。
• The universe is infinitely large.宇宙是无限大的。

14 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

15 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。